Eleven-month-old Sadie Smith, who has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, sits with her parents Meghan and Jacob Smith in their home in Murfreesboro, on Aug. 21.

Written by

Nancy De Gennaro
The Daily News Journal

Although 11-month-old Sadie Layne Smith was a bubbly baby just two months ago, a raging ear infection took precedence over her family's July 4 festivities. Four days later, she was struggling to breathe, says her mom, Meghan Smith.

Within a week, what the doctors at Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt thought was a massive amount of fluid on the baby's lungs turned out to be something much worse, cancer.

"We had an ultrasound ... and they came in and said it was caused by a mass around her diaphragm, about 4 centimeters. And they told us the mass was consistent with cancer (and ...